Page 120 of The Blade in the Ashes
He didn’t even want to hurtme, not really. He didn’t know me. I was just a tool for him to feel powerful.
It was a bit ironic. I had gone from being the most powerful person in the Mortal Realm, to making others feel powerful by degrading me.
It didn’t hurt as badly when he hit me a second time.
When he hit me for the third and final time, I hardly even felt it at all.
The brutality of it went on and on. My ribs snapped. My lip split again. My left eye swelled shut. I was nothing more than a vessel for him to release his anger upon.
George gripped my face in his hand, forcing me to meet his eyes.
“You’ll behave now.”
Not a question. Not even an order. Just a simple observation of a fact that we both knew was true.
There wasn’t any strength left in me to fight when he lifted me from the ground and threw me over his shoulder. Even if I had wanted to keep fighting, my limbs wouldn’t move. All I could do was exist in the pain that had taken over my every sensation.
“You’ll die for this,” I murmured through swollen lips.
He laughed.
But as he began joking with the other men, musing on what he’d spend his money on, I took comfort in that promise.
When George returned me to Hyrax, and the God saw me covered in bruises and broken inside, Hyrax would kill him instantly.
Or Caldrius would.
And if, by some miracle, they didn’t, then the daywouldcome when my powers returned and I would personally make him suffer for what he’d done to Nessira.
Either way, he would die, and I was going to be the reason why.
Two thunderclaps pounded in the sky as if the realm itself sealed that vow.
“Did you kill all the monsters in the woods?” George asked someone I couldn’t see.
“Most,” a voice answered. “The rest won’t come into the village for a while since they have that girl’s body to feast on.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Clay
Islammed down hard in the valley outside the village Camilla had pointed me towards.
Pulling my dragon back inside me was nearly impossible with this much rage and fear coursing through my system, but eventually my wings snapped in, scales fading to smooth skin. Absently, I glanced down at my naked form with a wince. I hadn’t thought to stop and grab clothing to carry with me. No matter.
I’d worry about modesty when Thea was safe.
“Sir!”
I glanced sideways at the small woman with auburn hair who clutched at her chest dramatically while staring at my groin. She stood by a clothesline, hanging damp garments to dry, a wet cotton shirt dangling limply from her fingertips.
“Where are your clothes?”
I didn’t blink. “Have you seen a woman with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes?”
A beautiful woman with an undeniably fiery spirit and an indescribable strength.
The woman blinked. Once. Twice. She seemed entirely incapable of thinking about anything other than my naked form—her gaze never straying far from my cock. Sighing impatiently, I stalked forward, tore the worn brown trousers hanging on the line, and stepped into them one leg at a time. They fit too snugly and just barely touched the tops of my ankles, but they would have to do.
